Getting Over the Hump

It will have passed by the time you read this, so I feel it is okay to say it:

I hate Wednesdays.

I always have.

I think there are several things that factor into my general disdain for this particular day.

First of all, let's just discuss the name of the day itself.

Wednesday.  Wed-nes-day.

Good Lord.  No wonder the English language is so hard to master.

Why isn't is just spelled Wensday?

I am pretty sure no one actually pronounces it Wed-nes-day....right?

~

Then there is the fact that is simply marks "mid-week."

Not the start of a fresh new week....nor the wonderful feeling of the END of the week.  Nope.  Just the middle of the week. I don't think of it as "hump day" so much. For me, it's more of a "bottomless pit you have to crawl out of to drag yourself toward survival" day.  Isn't that a happy visual?

It will also forever be etched into my brain as "church night."

Now, I realize as an "employee of the church" that I should be a person who looks forward to Wednesday with a zeal and passion, because it is the day upon which most churches hold their religious education classes.

Yes, that is lovely.

My childhood memories of Wednesday nights are of pure chaos.  It is that night of the "rush home from whatever practice/rehearsal we had after school, choke down dinner in under 5 minutes, and race out into the cold (because let's face it...95% of the "CCD school year" was during winter) to drive to church."

~

I grew up in the Metropolis of Westby, population approx 5600.

Considering it was heavily populated by Norweigians.... (including us...I mean, come on!  Look at me!  Don't I scream "Scandinavian girl?)

It's the blonde hair and blue eyes that give it away, isn't it?

.......meant that the majority of the town was of the Lutheran faith. (My father had been raised Lutheran (his side of the family is where the Norwegian heritage comes from) but converted to Catholicism when he married my mom.)

Anyway, the Catholic community was small that you had to drive to the next town to find a Catholic church.  (There were two large Lutheran churches 2 blocks apart right in the center of town though.)

I think that all of us Catholic kids (the small little group of us) were secretly a little jealous of the Lutheran kids, because we felt a little bit like the town outcasts.  One nice thing was that we got to know the kids who lived in Viroqua, the town where our church was located.  I really liked that aspect of it a lot.

~

Anyway.  The fact that we had to drive out of town added to the chaos of the night.

CCD classes were held in the church basement, or in a newer addition off the side of the church.  Either way...it was cold.  After our hour of riveting religious education, was choir practice.  My parents were both in the choir...so that meant me and my sisters were members by default.  Add an extra hour to the already long night.  And yes, the choir loft was COLD.

Now that I think about it...I believe children's choir (which we, of course, were forced to be in...and my mother eventually directed...that was entertaining) met BEFORE CCD classes.  Add another 45 minutes before CCD classes.

In other words....Wednesday nights were freezing cold, and endless.

And we NEVER missed them.  EVER.

~

I wish I could say that it all went away when I grew up.  But it didn't.  In one way or another, I was always involved in some church activity on Wednesday night.  Once my kids were in school, we started schlepping them to their classes.  The cycle continues.  It's still cold.  

Why don't they just teach them in the summer??

~

Fast forward to now.

My Wednesday nights are now the night I teach piano at the studio.

It's nice and warm there....so this is an improvement.

I do have to listen to beginner piano music for 4 hours, which isn't so bad, if I don't have a raging headache.

Luckily, all of my students are adorable, and they all have completely different personalities, so each lesson is completely unique.

However....it is also difficult.

Since I work at a church, I have obligations that come up there on Wednesday nights as well.  This involves me being in two places at once.

It is especially prevalent during the seasons of Advent and Lent.

These, of course, are my "high stress seasons" as well.  So, being pulled in several directions at once while in high stress mode kind of makes me prone toward losing my mind.

This is why God invented wine.

And Thursdays.

But mostly Fridays.

He must be Norwegian too.

And so....I will muddle through this day, and do a little dance of Thanksgiving when it is over.  Actually....tomorrow is jam packed with stuff too, and it might be even worse than today.

At least I maintain a positive, sunny outlook!

Let us all plod through to Friday....when surely the light at the end of the tunnel will be shining brightly!

(Until Saturday, when my day is packed with a bunch of crap again.)

Carry on my friends! Carry on!